Xi Continent, Great Rock Village.

  Xia Li sat down at the tea stall at the village entrance, sampling the cool tea an old man had brewed for him.

  One of the Daoist Sect Inspectors' entire clan lived in this village.

  The encounter at Vajra Temple had inexplicably stirred a surge of hostility in Xia Li. Wave after wave of nameless fury pricked at Xia Li's nerves.

  Xia Li didn't know why he felt this way. He must have been influenced by some kind of power, but he didn't resist acting on it.

  Perhaps it was the Vajra's wrath.

  Wrath at Vajra Temple's lack of fight, wrath at their tolerance of evildoers. And Xia Li had his own wrath—at this world's lack of fight and its complicity with tigers.

  That was why Xia Li had said Vajra Temple had no Vajras left.

  "Old sir, your tea tastes off."

  After drinking, Xia Li set down his cup. The tea had probably been drugged—but it was poison meant for mortals. It had no effect on him at all.

  He looked calmly at the old man. The old man, though mortal, had lived long enough to be shrewd. Naturally he wouldn't show anything unusual on his face.

  "Really? Perhaps the recipe is just a bit different..."

  "I heard there are bandits near Great Rock Village who rob passing merchants. I'm sent by the court to investigate. Old sir, do you know anything?"

  "I don't..."

  The old man shook his head, claiming ignorance.

  But Xia Li had learned everything about Great Rock Village crystal clear from Drunken Flower Tower's intelligence.

  That disciple's family, relying on having produced a cultivator—and a sect disciple at that—had completely shed their former honest and simple ways. They committed every imaginable evil—bullying men, dominating women, with the local secular dynasty not daring to intervene.

  Anyone passing through Great Rock Village either died or lost several layers of skin. Righteous mortal martial arts sects had tried to intervene...

  But they'd been personally annihilated by that disciple. From elders in their eighties and nineties down to infants in swaddling clothes.

  That disciple had exterminated others' entire clans before.

  Then such things would one day happen to that disciple himself.

  Of course, Xia Li had prepared himself for retaliation—his own nine clans offered to heaven. As long as they could find any of his nine clans still alive.

  "Your daughter was violated to death by the Xu family, yet you became their accomplice."

  "Just because the Xu family sent some rich city girl to be your second wife? How dignified of you."

  This old man, because the Xu family had sent him a ruined pretty woman, had immediately set aside his hatred and become the Xu family's dog.

  Similar things had happened throughout Great Rock Village. This place had been completely controlled by the Xu family. The villagers had all once been victims, yet now they'd all become cogs in the wheel of evil.

  One could say the Xu family were the local emperors of this area. The true emperor of the secular dynasty that should have governed Great Rock Village didn't dare ask questions.

  Hearing this, the old man's face turned vicious. He smashed his teacup directly. From the nearby houses and alleyways, many villagers emerged wearing armor and wielding quality weapons.

  "Where does this madman come from? Great Rock Village—even His Majesty the Emperor doesn't dare meddle. Who do you think you are? Looking to die!"

  The old man saw through Xia Li's purpose, thinking this was yet another "hero" from who knows where.

  Like Xia Li, self-righteous types wanting to seek justice for the world—Great Rock Village's mass grave on the back mountain had buried nearly a hundred.

  "That Xu Hong is quite clever. Servile and cautious within his sect, never daring to cause trouble. Outside, he also knows to restrain himself."

  "Surely he's instructed his family which people can be provoked and which can't. That's how they become local tyrants in this secular world."

  "Unfortunately... have you ever considered one thing? Your privileges come from the Immortal you revere. Then naturally, Immortals can also come to discipline your misdeeds."

  With that, Xia Li stirred his thoughts...

  Those armored villagers with their great sabers all floated into the air, their bodies twisting as if being crushed by invisible force.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Immortal... you're an Immortal!!"

  "Mercy, Immortal! Mercy! It was all the Xu family's coercion—all done by the Xu family. It has nothing to do with us. If we didn't comply, the Xu family would..."

  Before the old man could finish, his body also floated up and began twisting in midair, being kneaded into a ball.

  Rising and falling wails shattered Great Rock Village's tranquility.

  "Being coerced doesn't mean you can be absolved. I don't expect you to die rather than yield, but even a shred of remorse would be something."

  "I believe you were all once kind and simple. Unfortunately, you've all become terminally ill. Better to send you off early, lest you continue infecting others."

  Xia Li had no concept of "too many to punish." What Xia Li did was the opposite—thorough eradication of evil.

  He would not only exterminate the Xu family's nine clans; he even planned to massacre the village.

  If the villagers were merely accomplices, that would be one thing. But even their hearts had been corrupted. From now on, they'd never return to being good.

  No more words. Xia Li walked along the village's main road. From the houses on either side came continuous muffled sounds of flesh being crushed.

  After circling the entire village once.

  After sending all the villagers to meet Buddha, Xia Li finally walked toward the Xu family mansion.

  This Xu family had some capability—they actually had over a dozen Qi Refining cultivators protecting them. But Qi Refining cultivators were no different from mortals in Xia Li's eyes.

  Just a stir of his thoughts...

  Those Qi Refining cultivators on high alert were all seized by telekinesis around their necks, lifted into the air, and had their necks snapped. Xia Li tossed them like dead chickens before the Xu mansion gate.

  The people inside the Xu mansion didn't dare speak, all staring at Xia Li with terrified eyes.

  There was a young child—perhaps because the young calf doesn't fear the tiger—who actually stepped forward to point and curse at Xia Li.

  "You criminal! When Brother Hong returns, you're dead! You only dare come for revenge when Brother Hong isn't here. Trash! Coward!"

  "Annoying."

  Xia Li glared at the child who was only eight or nine years old. The child immediately clutched his chest and fell to the ground writhing, rolling several times before falling completely still.

  A moment of dead silence...

  An infant's wail broke the silence, but soon returned to quiet. That wailing infant, held in a woman's arms, had suddenly stopped breathing.

  "Leaving him alive, there's perhaps some probability he'd learn from his mistakes and turn to good. But a far greater probability he'd fall into demonic ways seeking revenge."

  "Surely you can guess your own fates. I'll borrow your heads."

  As he spoke, Xia Li stirred his thoughts. The heads of the entire Xu clan flew up, forcibly torn from their necks by powerful telekinesis. Xia Li collected them all with his storage ring.

  "Next... let me see whose family to visit?"

  Xia Li considered the most efficient route.

  What he'd done this time was extremely cruel, but this was also a kind of karma. It was also a process for Xia Li to contemplate and redefine "human."

  Some might argue that no matter how much evil one does, they're still human. That doing the same things as evildoers makes one no different from them. That was Buddhism's view.

  But what had Buddhism become now?

  Civilized order originated from mutual aid, allowing the elderly who'd lost labor capacity to pass on their knowledge.

  The old teach the young, and the young help the old survive. This nurturing and repayment was the earliest form of civilization, gradually giving rise to concepts of morality and goodness.

  Therefore...

  In Xia Li's view, behavior that destroyed this civilized form was no different from cancer cells. And cancer cells were also transformed from normal cells.

  Though all were human...

  There were clear differences. This Great Rock Village, in Xia Li's eyes, was a tumor of accumulated malignancy.